Presidential elections kick off with state-aligned parties organizing ‘enthusiastic’ turnout

Dozens of people were lined up on Sunday outside voting stations before the polls opened on the first day of domestic voting in the 2023 presidential elections.

The crowds — mostly composed of women and elderly people — had been bussed and tuk-tuk’d in for free from their homes, offices and universities to “participate” in the elections, Mada Masr correspondents present at voting stations in Cairo, Giza, Port Said, Aswan and Alexandria observed.

Mada Masr’s correspondents and sources tasked with monitoring the elections noted that the crowds were “enthusiastic.” However, the sources said this had less to do with an eagerness to exercise their right to vote and more to do with being given cash incentives or handouts for casting their ballots.

Voting commenced at 9 am amid festivities organized by the Nation’s Future and Homeland Defenders parties, both of which are closely aligned with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. A significant number of representatives and members of both parties could be observed at the majority of the polling stations.

Representatives of the other three candidates on the ballot — Social Democratic Egyptian Party head and opposition candidate Farid Zahran, Republican People’s Party head Hazem Omar and Wafd party head Abdel Sanad Yamama — were notably absent.

At some voting stations, voters told Mada Masr that they received a “token” that could be exchanged for a sum of LE200 in cash (approximately US$6.5) or the equivalent in basic food supplies. In other areas, pro-state party members and businessmen could be seen promising members of the public a “bag” of food after they cast their votes.

In front of voting stations in the Cairo neighborhoods of Zeitoun, Matareya and Ain Shams, individuals holding lists received those bussed in, cross-referenced their names on the lists, handed out “tokens” with their voting numbers and queued them up to wait for their turn to vote.

Mada Masr spoke to one of these individuals outside a polling station in Materya and asked them what they were doing. He responded: "We assist elderly women and men. We inform them of their assigned committee and send a tuk tuk to pick them up from their homes. Sisi will win in all cases, and we are helping the poor. LE200 is a decent amount.”

The LE200 “electoral bribe” was handed out to voters in other polling stations across Cairo, sources confirmed to Mada Masr. A voter in Mansheyet Nasser told Mada Masr that she and her seven sisters, aunt and mother received LE200 each from a contractor in front of the school after casting their votes at 11 am.

Police officers, civil society organizations and Nation’s Future Party delegates each carry lists of voters registered at their polling station, the head of a civil society organization working in Mansheyet Nasser told Mada Masr, explaining that each organization arranges transportation for its members “either by bus or microbus, depending on the number,” and is "given" LE200 for each person.

Voters and observers of the electoral process in Aswan told similar stories. Some in Aswan, however, received a box of food items instead of the cash. The boxes contained a chicken, two packs of sugar and rice, distributed by civil associations, tribes and families. The electoral contractor in Matareya and the head of the civil association in Mansheyet Nasser said that payments to voters and the tuk tuk drivers transporting them was done "under the supervision of police inspectors and all the prominent figures in the area."

The contractor added, "The Nation’s Future and the nation’s supporters pay." The head of the civil association also said that the party, referring to the Nation’s Future party, police detectives, businessmen, and traders in the entire area arrange the funds.

Meanwhile, several residents of Qursaya Island in Giza told Mada Masr that a charity organization owned by Nation’s Future Party leader Mohamed Aboul Enein transported all its regular beneficiaries to their polling stations in hundreds of buses and handed each voter a bag of food items, including “oil and sugar.”

Specific polling stations were prepared to set the electoral scene for local media outlets. An electoral contractor at a polling station in Matareya told Mada Masr that, while they were preparing to receive voters, electoral headquarters were designated for each area as the main location greenlit for media coverage and filming. The Matareya polling station was refurbished before Sunday with a new entrance and a passage designated for voters.

School buses were used to transport government employees from their jobs in education and health facilities and an electricity company, among others, to the polling station in Matareya, the contractor told Mada Masr, adding that rather than have the employees receive their bribes in cash, each involved government entity is covering that expense for their own employees, with a bonus “day and a half off from work.”

Mada Masr observed that some government employees from state-owned wastewater and petrochemical companies, among others, were transported by buses to the voting center.

In Heliopolis, Cairo, a voter told Mada Masr that she went to the electoral committee at the Tabari school and passed by the Salhadar school after 4 pm, and the turnout at both schools was extremely low. According to her, there was only one woman standing in front of the Tabari school. The voter also described buses on several streets in the area with numbers written on them and the drivers told pedestrians they were providing free transportation for voters to the polling stations.

In Smouha, Alexandria, a Mada Masr correspondent saw a large number of university students and government employees gathered at the polling site. Students from the Faculty of Education said they were taken from their lectures to the electoral committee and were told buses would bring them back after voting. One student said that they were promised a coupon worth LE200 for purchases from Fathallah supermarket, but she did not receive one.

The National Elections Authority issued a statement on Sunday afternoon that operations were running smoothly at 11,631 polling stations nationwide, as it is in constant communication with the general electoral committees, monitoring committees and subcommittees overseeing the voting process, which is seeing an “unprecedented” turnout in various governorates that “exceeds all expectations.” The authority deployed judges and judiciary employees to a number of subcommittees, according to its statement, to manage the turnout and expedite the voting process.

Voters, judges and people with experience in overseeing election procedures told Mada Masr that the queues and crowds outside polling stations were “engineered.”

A judicial source with 25 years of experience in overseeing elections told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity that there were fewer electoral districts this year compared to prior electoral cycles and fewer judges involved in supervising them. Coupled with an increase in the number of registered voters, said the source, the apparent overcrowding at polling stations was being exaggerated.

Only 12,000 subcommittees and fewer judges than usual were set to oversee this election cycle, said the source. The Supreme Elections Committee — which has since been replaced by the National Elections Authority (NEA) — allocated nearly 14,000 subcommittees in 2014 and 14,000 subcommittees and 16,000 judges in 2018. Another judicial source overseeing the ongoing elections in eastern Cairo also told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity that there are fewer staff at the polling stations and that the NEA had appointed only 30 percent of the judges working in his judicial institution to their voting stations. Voter registration trended in the opposite direction, with 67 million Egyptians now registered to vote, in comparison to 54 million in 2014 and 59 million in 2015.

As a result, voting is slow at the subcommittees, said the first source, and voters are kept waiting in long queues.

The crowds peaked at a polling station in a densely populated self-built area between 9 and 11 am, the second judicial source told Mada Masr, after which numbers started gradually decreasing.

Voting inside Egypt will continue until Tuesday. Subcommittees will then sort the vote count for each polling station and hand result reports over to their general committees, who will announce the count to the public next Wednesday. Candidates have the right to submit any appeals of the results announced by the general committees to the National Elections Authority by Thursday, after which the authority will spend two days reviewing the appeals to announce the final results of the 2023 presidential election season on December 18.